the outline mistress' guide to revision

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1 The Outline Mistress’ Guide to Revision "Allegorical Portrait of Urania, Muse of Astronomy by Louis Tocqué" by Follower of Louis Tocqué

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A guide for using outlines as revision tools instead of at the start of your first draft. Add rich detail and complex layers to your plot, characters, and story structure.

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Page 1: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

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The Outline Mistress’Guide to Revision

"Allegorical Portrait of Urania, Muse of Astronomy by Louis Tocqué" by Follower of Louis Tocqué

Page 2: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

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So you’ve finished your first draft…Here’s what to do next:

Celebrate!

Perambulate!

Educate!

Finishing a draft, even a bad one, is an achievement. Pour yourself some fine champagne as a reward.

Put that draft away for a little while. Do something unrelated: other work, a vacation, a hobby. Give your ideas time to stew/cure/ferment/congeal.

Do a little more research, read a story with the same trope or in the same subgenre, find a great book on craft.

Page 3: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

Outlines are story maps.• Charting a course:– An outline before a first draft

shows you where to go.• Describing a world:– An outline after a draft shows

you topography, allows you to add depth and detail.

The Northwest Passage

Hainan Province, China

Page 4: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

4Erato, Muse of Lyrical Poetry - Charles Meynier

The Memory Outline

Page 5: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

Test YourselfHow well do you know your story?

Page 6: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

Test YourselfHow well do you know your story?

• Write down everything, beat by beat, without rereading your manuscript.– You will make mistakes and

forget things. This is normal.

Page 7: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

Test YourselfHow well do you know your story?

• Write down everything, beat by beat, without rereading your manuscript.– You will make mistakes and

forget things. This is normal.

• Compare this outline with your draft.– Are your mistakes better than

what is in your draft? What parts did you forget, and why? Were they uninteresting? Less than fully realized?

Page 8: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

Test Yourself

• Write down everything, beat by beat, without rereading your manuscript.– You will make mistakes and

forget things. This is normal.

• Compare this outline with your draft.– Are your mistakes better than

what is in your draft? What parts did you forget, and why? Were they uninteresting? Less than fully realized?

How well do you know your story?

Page 9: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

9"Clio, Muse of History - Charles Meynier”

The Action Outline

Page 10: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

The Bones of Your StoryAction gives a story its structure.

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The Bones of Your Story

• Go through your draft, chapter by chapter.– Note roughly one event per

scene.– Note chapter word count.

Action gives a story its structure.

Page 12: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

The Bones of Your Story

• Go through your draft, chapter by chapter.– Note roughly one event per

scene.– Note chapter word count.

• Print out several copies and highlight:– Changes in POV– Action/reflection scenes– Locations– Sex scenes– Etc.

Action gives a story its structure.

Page 13: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

The Bones of Your Story

• Go through your draft, chapter by chapter.– Note roughly one significant

event per scene. – Note chapter word count.

• Print out several copies and highlight:– Changes in POV– Action/reflection scenes– Locations, themes, images– Sex scenes– Etc.

Action gives a story its structure.

Page 14: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

14The Battle of Beaux and Belles – Aubrey Beardsley

Demonstration:That White, White Throat

Page 15: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

Ella slipped into the ballroom while the seneschal’s back was turned. It took her but a moment to find her stepmother Malvolia in her gown of billowing red brocade. White lace frothed at her elbows and along the swell of her bosom, but her wrists and neck were left exposed. Only Ella knew that the single long white curl laying sweetly along the side of her throat masked the telltale two red puncture wounds of a vampire queen.

Malvolia’s eyes narrowed when she spotted the Prince, and she leaned over to whisper in her elder daughter’s ear. Vertiline’s gown was blush pink with ivory ribbons, one of which she had playfully twined around her wrist. Hiding two puncture marks of her own. A bracelet would have been too obvious: any jewels on the neck or wrist had gone quite out of fashion since vampires began infiltrating the kingdom and bending its subjects to their terrible will. The Prince’s father had gone so far as to have a few turned aristocrats executed, and now all the surviving nobles were anxious to demonstrate their uncorrupted humanity. Ella was fortunate her puncture marks were on her elbow, just covered by the sleeve of her gown. The location showed that she was merely an undervampire, one who followed orders rather than issued them.

Vertiline was smiling and curtseying to the Prince. Any moment now, Ella knew, the dance would begin. Vertiline would make some quiet remark, the Prince would lean closer to hear her – and she would bite him, turn him, and compel him and all his subjects to obey Malvolia for all eternity.

Ella refused to let that happen. She stepped between Vertiline and the Prince just as the orchestra struck up the waltz.

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Revision Outline

• Ella enters the ballroom• sees her stepmother (white

curl)• thinks about vampires• reflects on stepsister’s plan

to turn the prince• steps forward to interrupt

Clearly, the biggest thing missing from this ficlet is Ella’s motivation for stopping her stepmother and stepsisters. Her actions clearly show her opposition, but we don’t know anything about her as a character.

Page 17: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

Action Outline

• Ella sneaks into the ballroom and spots her vampire stepmother

• Vampire stepsister is out to get power by turning Prince into her vampire servant

• Ella herself is a vampire, but a subservient one.

• Nevertheless, Ella is determined to foil her stepmother/stepsisters.

Note how it’s clear from this outline that we have to refine how the vampire hierarchy works in this world. How do puncture marks align with status? Is it about a link between willpower and blood? Or the obligation and structure of a family?Power is a theme to be emphasized in revisions.

Page 18: The Outline Mistress' Guide To Revision

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All images courtesy of Wikimedia under Creative Commons license.

"Conca, Sebastiano - Urania and Erato - 17th or 18th c" by Sebastiano Conca

Happy Revising!